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| Pilobolus by John Kane |
Pilobolus Returns to the American Dance Festival
In theory I am in love with Pilobolus. The company was
founded on the belief that each individual is as important as the next and
together they could make something larger than themselves while still
maintaining a personal voice. To this day collective creative process and
collaboration remain at their core, even as they enter their 41st
performing season. Unfortunately, I was anything but in love with Pilobolus on
stage at the Durham Performing Arts Center on July 5, 2012.
The almost two and a half hour long program consisted of
five works, three created in 2012 (two of these commissioned by ADF) and two
older works. The variety of repertory shown was impressive, as were the visual
images created by the talented dancers. Besides Azimuth and Transformation,
however, Pilobolus failed to capture my imagination.
Opening the show was Azimuth,
an ADF commissioned collaboration with award winning master juggler, Michael
Moschen. As the red curtain rose, a black and white film of cells dividing,
fungi growing and amoebas shifting started to play on a little screen. As the
film ended, lights faded up on angled bodies, large silver hoops and arcs, and
brightly colored balls, creating what looked like an abstract sculpture of the
solar system. The six dancers brought the props to life as they juggled balls, partnered
the silver hoops like ballroom dance partners and balanced the silver arcs on
their shoulders, thighs, hips and feet. Toward the end of the piece a male and
female broke out in a lovely duet downstage. The two slid, spun and supported
each other in lifts, all the while holding a ball between them with various
body parts, like penguin parents trying to keep their egg off the cold ice. The
music by Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto, Yann Tiersen and Rene Aubry created
an eerie circus-like atmosphere that was delightful yet mysterious.
Skyscrapers
started off with a drawn out film where all we saw and heard was the view from
the front of what one can imagine is a moped or motorcycle as the driver
careens down a European city. Like most of Pilobolus’ work in the program (both
film and choreography) the idea is interesting, but somehow it never evolves to
where it can hold my attention. The small screen disappeared and the cyc was
suddenly lit up with a picture of a bright red building. Three couples took
turns sashaying in different ballroom dance styles across the backstage to
music by one of their latest collaborators, Ok Go. Each time the background
picture would change to another color of the rainbow, the dancers costumes of
suits and dresses would change to match. Skyscrapers
was fast paced, contemporary and cute, but technically awkward.
The first half closed with a repertory work, Sweet Purgatory, which was commissioned
for ADF in 1991. A soloist shuffled in jagged little lines across the stage,
one arm bent over her face, the other reaching for the sky, like a leaf that
was just barely hanging onto a branch in the wind. Five other dancers shuffled
onstage joining the soloist in the journey from purgatory to hell and back
again. The beautiful weight sharing and slow, almost magical lifts that
Pilobolus is known for were showcased wonderfully in this work. At times the
dancers melted into each other for support while at others they threw
themselves to the ground and pushed each other away in a fight against
something larger than the six of them.
The Transformation,
an adorable play of scale and puppetry where a giant transforms a little girl
into a dog, opened up the second half. Clever, humorous and to the point, The Transformation was a breath of fresh
air in the program.
Automaton closed
the program with a look at the human within the machine. Like Skyscrapers and Sweet Purgatory, this piece started off promising. The six dancers,
dressed in layers of gray, beige and white pants and shirts were accompanied
onstage by three large mirrors. A fourth mirror was attached at a forty-five
degree angle to the back wall so the audience was able to view the mirrored
world at multiple angles. With bent elbows and twitching heads, the dancers mimicked
machines and robots – coming together to create images with their bodies such
as a car or assembly line. The visual appeal started to fade, however, as the
choreography stayed stagnant. Even when the mood changed and the dancers began
to shed their clothes and partner each other in a sensual and soft manner in
what I imagine was a look at the human being amongst all the machinery, I was
not invested. It seemed fluffy and self-indulgent.
I left the concert feeling very torn about my experience.
Pilobolus had sown many creative seeds within the pieces of the program, but as
the choreography never felt fully developed, so too, the creative ideas never
came to their full blossom.
The American Dance Festival continues with Ragamala at the
Reynolds Industries Theater (July 10-12) and Vertigo Dance Company at Durham Performing Arts Center (July 13-14).
Michele Trumble
Copyright Michele Trumble 2012
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